The IMD Global Family Business Center (GFBC) has been bestowed with the distinguished International Award from the Family Firm Institute (FFI). The FFI Committee unanimously agreed on the choice of IMD.
This prestigious award is conferred upon one individual organization that has made major contributions to understanding the special challenges that families and their businesses must address when they establish international activities and structures.
“At IMD we strive to challenge what is and inspire what could be,” says Peter Vogel, Professor of Family Business and Entrepreneurship, and Director of the GFBC. “Winning the FFI award is a great recognition of our efforts to be a leading global reference for family business education, research and outreach.”
In addition to the quality of the GFBC’s work, the award recognizes specific activities that include: educational programs with the primary focus on the work of family businesses crossing international borders; the practice of advising and consulting with family businesses; promoting recognition of the economic and social prominence of family business; and the collaborative efforts of educators, advisors, and/or family business members between two or more countries.
The GFBC is a world-leading hub providing learning journeys and research to family enterprises. Dedicated to the real issues facing family businesses, family offices, and family foundations, the Center helps clients ensure the sustainable success of their business and family, whether large or small. It is a place where families come to learn, and where they can safely open up and share their issues and challenges in confidence. In their many collaborations, the FFI and IMD have played a large role in advancing the field of education in family enterprises.
IMD was the first business school to offer executive education to business-owning families, pioneering its Leading the Family Business (LFB) open program in 1988. The Center continues to lead the way in the field, today operating from campuses in Lausanne and Singapore and delivering off-site programs worldwide.
Since 1996, IMD has celebrated the importance of family enterprise in the global economy through the IMD – Pictet Global Family Business Award. This has been complemented by a second award, the IMD – Pictet Sustainability in Family Business Award since 2019.
The GFBC was nominated by Gregoire Imfeld, founder of ONE Family Governance, an organization that advises family businesses and that has worked closely with the GFBC on custom programs. In the nomination he noted: “The quantity and quality of IMD’s contribution to family businesses throughout the years is so significant that any attempt to highlight any in particular may discredit this nomination, such is the impact that IMD has had on family businesses. The depth in knowledge and breadth in experience makes IMD a unique place for family businesses.”
The International Award ceremony will take place during FFI’s London conference in October, as part of its global annual meeting.
